Children eat melted plastic in ‘appalling’ school lunch

Monday, 3 March 2025

Children tucking into their school lunches discovered they were eating plastic, in an incident their principal described as “appalling“.

Murchison Area School principal Andy Ashworth said the 200 or so meals supplied to his rural Tasman school from provider Libelle “seemed to be getting worse”. However, on Friday they reached a new low.

“The containers were so hot that they had melted both the plastic films on the top into the food, and the bottom had also melted into the food,” Ashworth said. “This is absolutely disgusting and dangerous.”

New Zealand Food Safety said it was following up reports of the incident, and planned to discuss it with the Ministry of Education and meet Libelle.

“It is a requirement for any packaging in contact with food to be safe. At this early stage, it appears the food has been reheated inappropriately, affecting the quality of the meals, rather than incorrect food packaging being used.”

The children did not notice they were eating plastic until they got to the bottom of the container, Ashworth said.

The photos he sent Stuff showed holes in one container where the plastic had melted away.

Another photo appeared to show meals with the lid removed. However, Ashworth said the plastic film covering the meals had melted into the hot surface of the food.

When Ashworth complained to Libelle, they responded with a generic email.

“As we’ve communicated previously, manufacturing shortfalls have affected both menu availability and variety. The School Lunch Collective is expanding its range of meal suppliers to help address these challenges.”

The School Lunch Collective told Stuff the meals were heated for 30 minutes at 180C in a convection oven.

“This has caused the lunches to be overheated as convection ovens are hotter than conventional ovens. Going forward, these meals will be reheated at 160C in a convection oven for 20-25 minutes.”

They had contacted the school to apologise, the spokesperson said.

Ashworth said Libelle was “fed up” with his complaints. But while the meals worsened, he would continue to speak up.

The principal had voiced his dissent right from the start of the programme.

Previously, the school’s lunches had been made by the café next door: they were healthy and tasty, and there was little food waste, he said.

When the Government made cost-cutting changes to the school lunches programme that meant his pupils would receive lunches made in Hamilton, 800km away, Ashworth predicted “a disaster”.

In mid February, he highlighted “stinking” food waste and the extra work for staff, who had to tackle the waste.

The quality continued to decline, to the point where the meals all looked identical, he said.

“Honestly, sometimes you don’t know what they’re supposed to be. Cottage pie, lasagne, something else: it literally looks the same.”

For a while, it was “butter chicken most days,” and once a curry was so spicy the smaller children couldn’t eat it.

Around half the meals were left uneaten, he said.

The company was constantly constantly changing packaging that was often not fit for purpose, with leaking containers, Ashworth said.

The area school had just over 200 children aged between 5 and 18.

The older children got two sides with their meals, like an apple and a piece of pita bread. They would get by by eating these, and stretching out their morning tea, Ashworth said.

The school was one of those identified by the Government as needing extra food support.

Ashworth said being a rural school, children as young as 5 left home by 7am to catch their bus.

“Half of the time they don’t have breakfast, then a limited morning tea because of finances, and they don’t get home till 4pm.”